[Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

This thread is a spin-off of this discussion, and has been started to focus on radical tournament structure changes. This thread is intended to collect innovative ways to structure tournament play. Using previous years as an example, this might include ideas to add human players to a robot-only format, or to change the three robots playing at once to a three-team alliance format. Sizes of alliances, lengths of matches, number of matches at a tournament, etc are all open for discussion. Like the above thread, this thread is meant to collect creative ideas that can be applied to any game concept.

-dave

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

Pending how many teams will be rookies next year, I would say that a 3 on 3 format would work well. The squarish/rectangularishified fields were easy to set up (it seemed) and convenient to buy materials for, so those could stay.

Tournament structure: You can only cram so many into a round. I don't see why this should change. However, the faster the setup the better. This way things aren't always running into "Short Russian Jew needs Food" time.

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

The most important time of the day, aye?

Anyway, perhaps the rounds could be shortened a little bit to 1:30, with a 15 second autonomous on top, allowing us to have more matches played, so there won't be any complaints about Regional A got 8 matches per team, and Regonal B got 15. The numbers will be high enough to remove the pouting. Assuming the game permits for this, of course.

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

I have thought about using a human player to balance weights on a platform so the robot can gain some type of advantage (similar to the "balance the bridge" Comp in 2001). As far as game elements the only thing that they have every brought back is the large 2 ft balls, the soccer balls, and the playground balls. I really don't see the FIRST team bringing back the tetras or any other game element in future years. This is a list our team compiled of things that FIRST has used over the last few years

Balls ( Yellow 2x, playground, Soccer)
Floppies
Torus(s)
Boxes ( Stack Attack)

These were just a few, but the only ones i know of are the balls from 2001, 2002, 2004. They will probibly bring back balls next year; which is kinda a bummer. Becasue all some of the teams have to do is search Delphi for balls heading or grabbing and they find all the specs. ( Not to say this is bad, but there is no engineering challenge, 2005! Now that was fun!!!)

I think any challenge will be great as long as it just puts forth the message of Gracious Professionalism.

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

Instead of the current alliance 1 plays 8, 2 plays 7, 3 plays 6, and 4 plays 5, in the quarterfinals, I would like to see something more along the lines of 1 plays 2, 3 plays 4, etc because 1 vs 8 is usually right away two wins by #1 but 4 vs 5 is well matched competition and it is not clear who will win. So, make the higher alliances work hard to stay in the game and make the lower alliances have a better chance of moving on.

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

Personally, I think shortened matches are not the answer. If you do that, you're spending more time in the queue, which is understandable. However, I'd rather be spending that time doing other things, like tweaking this, reprogramming that, and the occasional break for when nature calls. You can't really do that in the queueing line.

I'd personally like to see 3v3 return--the madness is perfect. However, let's up the match length to 3:00. You'd have fewer matches and fewer field resets, meaning that (in theory) your field would be in use more. With Dean's homework at Kickoff this year being to draw folks in off the street, I think keeping the excitement up is a big deal.

I would also assume the fix-it window falls under radical tournament ideas as well. I like the concept overall, but some areas just seemed ridiculous this year, most notably programming, the control system, and cosmetics. I would say that programming needs to be excluded from the fix-it window; as I said in some other post, the kids aren't gaining anything by coding it all and re-typing it at the event.

The control system, in my opinion, needs to be let go to a point as well. Since teams have the same capabilities on the OI, I would personally allow changes to the control board that can be made without altering components (other than programming) on the robot. By doing so, you'd be allowing more folks a chance to do neater things such as mini-arms, instead of having to zip-tie two joysticks to a board the day of the regional.

Finally, there is the issue of cosmetics, such as labeling. When 1293 shipped Ockham this year, the panels were bare metal, with no sponsor logos in sight. Because it wasn't in the crate, we couldn't legally print off those sponsor logos until the pits opened at Palmetto. So that's what I wound up doing on my Thursday morning--walking to the Thomas Cooper Library in the pouring rain, uphill both ways, to print off three copies of our sponsors, at a total cost ot $0.75.

Overall, I like the idea of limiting fabrication time. However, I think some flexibility should be involved for things that can either be worked around, or involve no real fabrication.

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

Qualification Round Alliances:
Go back to the 2000 and 2001 way of randomly selected alliances. In those years, each team was given a list of 12 teams (including their own team) and those 12 teams were listed for 3 straight matches. Then, teams didnt find out who they were working with or against until they were in the queing area. So, Teams 1- 12 are listed for matches 1, 2 and 3. None of the teams however know who they are working with or against, or in what match.

I found this far more interesting; it forced the drive teams to think up strategy quickly with their new partners (and in only 2 or 3 minutes time).

Robot Size and Weight:
People are getting used to the current size restrictions. Why not be evil and go back to one of the older size resitrictions? Perhaps only 4ft tall robots, or something like that. It would certainly even out the playing field a bit, since few teams would have experience with smaller robots. Besides, smaller robots means you could put more robots on the field at a time (or just make 3v3 a little less crowded). Plus, smaller robots are easier to transport and move around.

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

I wish I'd have thought of such things--I enjoy both ideas. Think of the challenge this year would've been if your robot were a foot shorter. That would've been three fewer feet on our robot's arm, unless we added a fourth level, which increases weight, which...you get the idea.

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

If you want "radical" how about a game where the robot "carried" the human player to a designated spot where the human player could then become "engaged" in the game?

Designing the robot to better interact PROACTIVELY with the human team (driver, human player, etc). Currently, the robot is a REACTIVE entitiy; only doing what it's told by the humans.

Other "radical" ideas that have been brought up:
1) Alter the playing terrain (add dirt, water, gravel)
2) Alter the field altitude (steps, ramps up & down)
3) Alter the visibility (tunnels, lights out, fog, drivers with "blackout" helmets so they have to be coached verbally or driven soley by an on-board camera)

Wow....only 5,577 hours until January 7, 2006 (is that when all the fun starts again?)

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

I like the idea of making the game harder on the drivers, I support putting large obstructions in places on the field, where the drivers at the station would have some sort of wall at some point on the field were the robot entering the area would be out of the field of view, and the human player would have to navigate the driver via a hardwired radio or something.

Another idea i like is a surface where wheels won't work so well. It'd be a challenge to engineer, but the ideas people would try to come up with would be soo innovative it'd be crazy. A crazy idea is a playing field that would be like pyramid, only steps instead of a smooth surface. Just use a surface the wheels or treads would need some innovation

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

Now, I really like this idea proposed by cdr1122334455
YES.....put a wall on the field, behind which the driver has to perform some task. However, he/she MUST be guided by the team's human player, who has a different vantage point. Each team can dream-up some sort of signaling system between the human player and driver (anything but a radio or video "eyes"). It could be shouting, hand signals, running back and forth, etc...Or let the driver simply try to do the task "blindly" or let the robot work in the midst of the game in a new-founded autonomous mode.....yippee.

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

I think something that should be taken under HEAVY consideration is the possibility of having Video Replay's to determine some close calls and such, I think every team that competed has had a call that could of been changed, and Video editing would give some closure to the logic behind debatable calls. It maybe difficult to pull off, but the happiness factor definitely would go up. Also spectators would get some spectacular views off of Cameras directly over the Field.

Radical Tournament Ideas
 

I have a few "radical" ideas:

Radical Idea #1:
Split the Championship into eight divisions, for the same reason it was split into four divisions (as outlined in this post). Then there are 64 teams in the elimination rounds (like a certain very popular basketball tournament that happens in March). This will also make room for the FIRST Championship to expand in the future, as opposed to simply reacting to the growth later on. Four hundred teams next year, anyone?

Radical Idea #2:
Longer matches. Not just by a minute, but MUCH longer. Maybe, 8 minutes. Or 15 minutes. Then one of the engineering challenges becomes how to get batteries to last long enough while still having an active, effecitive machine. This would also allow matches to be split into periods - halves, thirds, or quarters - so that alliances can reevaluate their strategies during breaks, change batteries, do quick mechanical work, etc. The end result I have in mind is that there will actaully be come-from-behind victories, which seems very rare in a two-minute game. Also, each period could begin with a new autonomous mode. This way, we don't have to have a minute-long autonomous mode to please the programmers, but just three or four 15-second versions. Finally, this would allow for serious infractions to have immediate consequences (ie, stop the clock and remove the offending robot from play, or assess the penalty immedaitely instead of at the end of the game, when it isn't always clear what happened or why). I know that longer matches means fewer matches, but the quality of each match could really go up. And it would be interesting, at any rate.

Radical Idea #3:
Autonomous mode at the *end* of human-control mode. Then when a match is close, you have to rely on something you cannot control directly - much more exciting!

Radical Idea #4:
It has already been brought up, but I also really like the idea of "blind" drivers - or areas on the field where the drivers cannot see their robots - but one or two or three (!) human players can see the robot, and have to communicate that information back to the drivers using some innovative technique. A simple six-foot tall obstruction in the center of the field would do the trick.

Radical Idea #5:
Borrow ideas from popular sports to draw in the crowds. A football, for example, is an oddly-shaped object for a robot to manipulate, so that makes for a great engineering challenge. How about a game with a quarterback, a defender, and a reciever. The receiver goes to the other side of the field and must catch or collect the footballs in their endzone that the quarterback throws, while the defender tries to block the balls without touching the quartrback or the reciever (or else it gets shut down for a while) - this way, points aren't arbitraily given or taken away, but it becomes easier or harder to get them. Or how about a 10-foot tall hoop that robots must pass - gasp - basketballs thorugh. Making it something that "normal people" (ie, non-FIRSTers) can relate too should help marketability. That way, we can descibe the game as "its like basketball, but with robots" instead of "its like putting small pyramids on big pyramids, with a taller pyramid in the middle and... uh, no not in Egypt, in Atlanta..."

Ah, there is more, but thats all that wants to come out right now...

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

Ack! How did I miss this thread. I've been waiting since championships for it.

Anyway, something I came up with...
(You may want to look at the field picture first, as a picture of the field may help the description make more sense)

Basic Points
•1 vs. 1 vs. 1 vs. 1 vs. 1
•Your alliance partners are the two teams on either side of you. Yes this means that each team will have a different set of alliance partners. For instance Red would work with Orange and Yellow. Blue would work with orange and green.
•Your total score is your score plus the score of your alliance partners (the two teams on either side of you)
•Each match teams are ranked by total score. 1st place gets 3 ranking points, 2nd place gets 2 ranking points, 3rd place gets 1 ranking point, and 4th and 5th place get 0 ranking points. In the event of a tie in total score teams are ranked by their own score. If there is still a tie both teams are given the higher RP value. For instance if two team tied for 1st place they would both get 3 RP, and the next highest team would get 1 RP.
•Qualifying points are determined by your team’s high score.

Game Play and Scoring Objects
•The scoring objects are pool noodles and nerf soccer balls.
•Each team has a home zone and a far zone.
•In each home zone are two seven foot tall “T” shaped goals. They are placed so that the top bars are four feet apart and parallel to each other, and perpendicular to the driver station wall.
•The goal is to lay noodles across the bars to create a platform to place the balls onto.
•The far zone contains one seven foot high stationary goal.
•Points can be scored by placing noodles across the home zone goals and stacking balls onto them, or by scoring balls in the stationary goal and completely containing noodles in the far zone.
•Home zones may not be de-scored but far zones can be.
•Each team has two human players – a noodle human player to the left of their driver station and a soccer ball human player to the right of their driver station.
•To the left of each driver station there is a 1’ x 1’ square “go” button and to the right of each driver station is a 1’ x 1’ square “stop” button. If a team’s “stop” button is activated their human players may not move off the pad or their robot will be temporarily disabled. Each match starts with every “stop” button disabled. The human player pad is located ten feet from the human player interaction area.

Good Things
•It would lead to a more offensive game because it will be very important to be able to score points reliably, but it will also allow for defense because in the end you need to outscore every team to win.
•It allows 5 teams on the field at once
•It would decrease time between matches because each color could have two driver stations and one team could set up while the other team packed up.

Bad Things and Reasons it Wouldn’t Work
•Different field shape, would probably be too expensive to build, and I imagine would be awkward to fit inside certain venues.
•Elimination rounds would be nightmarish to work out (although it would make it easier to create five divisions at championships, which would allow for either more matches per team, or more teams)
•It might be somewhat difficult to explain. Although most FIRST games start out hard to explain and then they get easier as you get practice.
•Need to add in some autonomous options (but with all of the colors there are probably some entertaining vision system options)
•Need to do more with human player.

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

447 completely disproves your 1v8 comment. In all 3 of their competitions (VCU, another regional, and Championships) they were the #8 alliance and we're finalists all 3 times. Also, you might see teams start to throw matches to get out of the #2 spot so they dont have to face the #1 alliance, or stuff along that level.

I have a proposal to make. Instead of just having winners and finalists, add a "bronze medal" round. It would make the tournament more interesting, plus give the finalist robots a chance to cool off. Also, especially on the championship scale it would be very interesting.

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

Ok, my overactive mind which was reading about the scouting and strategy this year, and well it gave me sort of an idea. What if teams don't find out who their alliance partners are until the match actually starts?

-Scouting would have to be a especially large effort since teams would need to look at every team in the match
-Designs would sort of enforce Versatility and the ability to do more in a match because partners would be almost unpredictable, and this would encourage innovation instead of specialty

Some stuff would need to change:
-Larger Team Identification Systems, or ones that are more visible and possibly clearer to read, i personally believe would need to be much more easy to identify at a game that would have you waiting until the last second to find out who's on what team
-Robot Starting positions, either robots start in the corners of a square, or they bring in the much talked about, circular playing field.
-Human Controller stations, they all need to be together somehow so the alliances that end up together have some form of communication

Like it?

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

I like the idea. But instead of finding out right at the start of the match, the MC or someone could tell them just before they set up. It would still encourage versatility and such but it would call up on-the-spot strategy.

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

To make the idea even more wild, have varying starting positions on each alliance. If 1 and 2 we're always red, and 3 and 4 we're alwyas blue, it would be easy to track down your partner. But for one match have 1 and 3 be red, then the next 1 and 4. It would call for radical strategy changes as you don't even know where your alliance partner is starting from!
Or even more sadistic yet, you don't find out your partners until AFTER the match! :ahh: That would make for one quite interesting game, and it would probably be lot more action packed and offensive, as you don't want to accidentally play defense against your alliance partner. It would lead to quite exciting chaos. Not sure how it would work for the elimination rounds though.

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

Actually, it's not as bad as you might think. When you see another robot delivering stuff (with your team color) to your team's goal, it's a pretty safe assumption that they are on your alliance. Also, what about team color lights? Do you want to remove them completely?
There is also this thing about keeping the game at least halfway spectator friendly.

Good idea, but it needs a little fine-tuning. Maybe the game designers could do that? (As if they don't have enough to do dreaming up stuff to stump us.)

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

Wouldn't that effectively result in a Nv0 game? I mean, if nobody's running defense on anyone...

However, not knowing your alliance partners until the opening trumpet does seem devilish enough. On a similar concept, suppose that next year's player stations were set up with the last alliance memberoperating from the opposite side. (To keep autonomous from becoming steer-to-the-right-and-ram, we'll say the robots start with the other alliance partners.) If something doesn't go according to plan, you're gonna have tons of fun trying to communicate with your alliance partners.

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

The FIRST games traditionally have been a lot about luck, which is a good thing perhaps because it allows the teams with not-as-good robots that "lucky" chance to win.

But for a radical idea, I have always wondered what a FIRST game would be like if a lot of the luck was taken out of it. If winning a match or ranking was based more just on robot design/capability and driver skill rather than who you are paired with or how many points the losing team gets.

I'm not saying removing the luck factor is a good idea, I'm just saying it is a different idea; an idea that I don't believe has been previously brought up.

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

radical idea... *havent read thread but i just thought of it =/...

only 2 practices rounds per team and start matches on THURSDAY after lunch!!!

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

Heres a very simple, yet very radical idea. What if next year's game could be explained in 1 sentence? Or maybe a nice short Paragraph (5 sentences or less)?

The problem is explaing the game to a spectator, they are intrested. But they need a simple way of explaing it. For example this year's game: 3-D Tic Tac Toe and then you go crazy with all the scoring and bonuses. But imagine a First game that everyone could get in 1 simple sentence. That is why it is a radical idea.

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

Good idea, but I see two things that could happen.

1. The game is very simple with only one strategy to choose from instead of the traditional multiple strategies that are sort of equal but opposite.

2. The game too much resembles another game. An example is 3D tic-tac-toe. I see the tic-tac-toe part, but not the 3d part, but anyway, If in the game we only could get points for rows and nothing else, it would be easy to explain the game in a sentence, but it would be tic-tac-toe and not a unique game.

I think the games should be more complex, because that makes better games. Also, it allows for more strategies. One robot could be throwing balls in a goal like crazy gaining lots of points, but then another robot could hang from the bar as another way to get points.

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

What about this, the top seven teams pick their partners then all the teams that are left have their numbers put into a had. The judges/refs/computer then selects 3 teams to be the eighth aliance

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

I like the system the way it is. If one alliance is made up of random teams and not the top teams, they may not do as well and don't have much of a chance. I would rather see 24 teams in 8 alliances that are supposed to be the top.

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

Well, the idea would be that each team would have a different color/goal and would score independantly. Say there 4 "colors" are green, red, blue, and white. Match one, green and red are together (they dont find out until after though), match 2 green and white, ect.

Here's how I would invision it. Say the game is similar to the 2004 game, First Frenzy (although you can create any sort of game you wanted). There are 4 goals, one for each color, a bunch of small balls, and 3 doubler balls. The goals are close to each teams respective corner. In the middle could be a bar or ramp of some sort for some kind of King of the Hill or hanging points.
With a limited number of balls, especially the doubler balls, battles would emerge over them, as well as with the limited space in the middle, ensuring action. Some teams could (and a few probably would, although it may be risky, so I wouldnt forsee it being common) making "truces" before the match to help eachother in hope that they end up on the same alliance. Say one bot is really good at scoring the small balls, and another at capping. They could work together, one scoring small balls in both goals, the other capping both.
The biggest problems I forsee arises from the chaos on the field leading to the game possibly being not audience friendly, and these "truces". Back-stabbing could occur, and if a team fails to hold up its obligation (even if they tried but failed),t hey could be occused of back-stabbing and have their reputation soiled.

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

This is sort of a general idea but it could develop into a much more complex idea. On the playing field you can only do certain actions from certain places.
Example:
Think back to 2004, you have the bar to hang on, but instead of the stairs you have a ramp on either side. One catch, you can't drive on to the ramp on and then procede onto the Bar. You could use the ramp to maneuver around the field but to not complete a task, its sorta like a highway.

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

Well, I am not sure exactly how "radical" this idea is, but since it would be a change from last year's system, I think it belongs in this thread.

I am surprised that no one has mentioned any reform to the penalty system. There were many complaints this year about proportionality of the penalties that were assessed, as compared to the points that were usually scored in a match.

Therefore I propose the following solution:

Why not assign a "penalty coefficient" to each of the rule infractions that can occur?

If we used this year as an example:

INFRACTION...|...PENALTY COEFFICIENT
---------------------------------------
LOAD ZONE INTERFERENCE - .85
HP INFRACTION------------ .95

Say the blue alliance scored a total of 50 points, and had 1 load zone infraction and 2 HP infractions. The red alliance had a total of 70 points, and only 1 HP infraction. The formula for determining the score with penalties for each alliance would be:

[((.85)^(# of Load infractions))*((.95)^(# of HP infractions))] * Raw Score

In this case, for blue alliance:

(.85)^1*(.95)^2 = .77
.77 * 50 = 38.5 .. (round up to 39 to give the blue alliance benefit of the doubt)

For the red alliance:

(.85)^0*(.95)^1 = .95
.95 * 70 = 66.5 .. (round up to 67 to give the red alliance the benefit of the doubt)

In this case, red would win, 67 to 39. By the old rules, blue would still have lost, but with an even greater and more devastating margin. The score would have been 60 to 0 ... very disproportionate (plus red would have gotten no qualifying points).

I realize that there are some quirks to this system that would probably have to be accounted for. But hey, it's just an idea, and ideas can be improved by more than one person.
What do you think?

-- Jaine

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

Alright, I'll throw an idea out here for everyone.

The Capital Clash is allowing folks to increase their robots' weight to 125 pounds with everything. So why not make it interesting for teams at competitions?

Suppose that for regionals, everyone keeps the 120 pound weight limit. But at the championship, the weight limit drops, say, three or five pounds.

Or, since everyone talks about folks who go to several regionals getting an advantage, why not make it three pounds per competition? If 1293 went to, say, Peachtree, Palmetto, and the Championship, then the weight limit would go from 120 to 117 to 114. At each competition, you have to be able to pack your theoretical ten pounds of potatoes into your theoretical five-pound sack.

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

That's quite the innovative idea, but the penalties were that big for a reason. So we wouldn't want to get them. They were for safety purposes. I personally think that 20 point penalties for shoving is minimal. The point of the game is to get a high score, and work together. Defense is something that should be involved in that, but not to the extent that it has been in the past. Penalties are there for a reason. The game is just a pedistal, it's not really the focal point of FIRST in my opinion. Building the robot and learning is.

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

the scoring idea you proposed looks really good and fair. However, It does not lend itself to outside spectator interaction very well. it is very difficult for Joe-six-pack off the street to understand a first game that has penalties that are similar to a sport like basketball or football. Imagine how confused he would be if we started giving him a large formula about who wins and who loses

just my $.02

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

Tell you the truth, when the game is first announced (every year), I always get confuse until I go back and read the rules one more time and watch the Animation that Dave makes for us every year.

Every single game that FIRST has come up with has a lot of little details that get discussed throughout the season. For example, FIRST Triple play had a lot of details. When someone asked me what was the game, I said its a Tic-Tac-Toe game where you place the tetra (I explained it to them what a Tetra was) on the goals.

What I am trying to point out is, the idea that was thrown in here by Jaine is a very good idea. If we ever have a situation like that, us FIRSTers need to understand it. When it comes to public, they are more interested in knowing what your robot does more than how the game is scored.

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

This might not be radical, but it does fall under the tournament as far as I can tell.

In the manual, there is a Regional Champion (or simply Champion at the Championship). However, the banners the winning teams simply read "WINNER" instead.

Without getting into too deep a philosophical thing (it is widely said that everyone who competes in FIRST is a winner), would it be possible to get the champions' banners to read Champion instead?

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

How about adding a Mentor's round?

Of course if we did that we'd also have to bring back "drop the lowest score" in the QP system. That way the Mentors couldn't ruin your standings all by themselves.

I'm assuming the IRI mentor definition would be used.

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

the problem with doing this is that some teams, unlike many others don't have enough mentors to have a drive team. However I do like droping the lowest score idea again. Every team goes to a competition with one match that they'd like to forget.

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

"Radical Idea #3:
Autonomous mode at the *end* of human-control mode. Then when a match is close, you have to rely on something you cannot control directly - much more exciting! "

by far the best idea here =P

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

Here's something radical, although I do wonder whether I'm a bit late to the dance. (55 days until Kickoff--I'd imagine they've got a bit of the work done by now.)

Suppose that on Thursday, we have our normal practice day. Then, first thing Friday morning, we have alliance selections.

And for better or worse, in sickness and in health, that is your alliance for the remainder of the competition, both qualification and elimination.

Of course, this would require regionals to have capacities divisible by three, but it sure would be interesting.

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

How would you decide who got to pick first? Random pickers? That'd work, and would really promote teamwork, but if you got stuck with a bad team, you'd be in some serious trouble for the entire regional.

Re: [Official 2006 Game Design] Radical Tournament Ideas
 

This way late... and reviving an old thread, but what if by completing a task in autonomous (i.e. hitting a switch), you got to start early? That would definently give teams an edge, promote autonomous, and be rather simple to implement.